The Origin of Favicons
The favicon was first introduced by Internet Explorer in March 1999. Microsoft added support for the favicon in IE5 to allow website owners to display a small icon in the browser's favorites (bookmarks) menu.
Initially, favicons were limited to 16×16 pixel ICO files and had to be placed in a website's root directory with the name "favicon.ico". Over time, the concept evolved to support multiple formats and sizes, becoming a standard feature across all modern browsers.